Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Stockpiling For Mists Of Pandaria

Is it too early to Stockpile for MoP? The Cataclysm expansion has come to a lull and Diablo 3 is on the horizon, but it is definitely not too early to start thinking about stockpiling for Mists of Pandaria. Have you thought about what you will be stocking up on? When the new WoW expansion launches, we will see another profitable mass influx of players joining the game. These players will be a mix of brand new players and returning players. Many players will be wanting to try the new monk class or the new Panda race. New players and new characters bring an increased demand for many items like those required for profession leveling or items that enhance or speed the leveling process. There will be many markets that will return to being viable simply because of the population growths that always occur following a new expansion's release. Remember a major patch or a previous WoW expansion launch when you ran out of something that was a goldmine at the time? Did you wish you had stockpiled more of them? Or maybe you hadn't even stockpiled at all and the auction house prices had gone through the roof on you. Don't let your competition choke you out of the auction house because you forgot to stockpile! It is time to think ahead to tank advantage of this major market cycle in WoW.

Raw Materials

With any new character population explosion there will be an increased need for all raw materials required for leveling a character's professions. Ores, Herbs, and Leather will all see an increase in demand at the beginning of MoP as players level there professions. As the expansion continues farther past the launch and there are less characters in the leveling zones, the lower level raw materials prices will start to climb as there are less players and bots farming those areas for raw materials. Most players and bots will move on to the new MoP raw materials.

Anything that you will be needing to level a profession or to continue a niche market it is a good choice for your MoP stockpile. If you are looking for good money makers to sell quickly, then you should focus on raw materials that are choke points to leveling a profession. You can even make WoW inflation work in your favor, by stocking up on raw materials at today's prices and then selling the crafted good at the later inflated market rate.

Leather is currently hard to come by on my server and I only predict that it will get worse, unless we see a nice influx of monks, pandas, and new characters coming in as skinners. Even then, the demand for leather and leather crafted goods will skyrocket with all of the monks in MoP. Remember the rush on Plate when Death Knights were added?

Inks

What is the best item for any scribe to stock up on? Inks are the main focus of a Scribe's stockpile. Why Inks? Versatility! We know that the glyph system is getting another major overhaul, so crafting a bunch of glyphs ahead of time could be a flawed plan. Every time there is a glyph overhaul, we get glyphs that don't survive any changes. These glyphs turn into vendor trash. Any of these you have pre-crafted that you can't get rid of will be wasted potential profits. Saving Inks in your stockpile for MoP will keep you versatile. The Inscription exchange vendors like Jessica Sellers should be utilized prior to the new expansion. The vendors will be changed to require the newest MoP Inks so any stockpiling of the various Inks should be done ahead of the expansion. If you forget, you will be stuck with a bunch of Blackfallow Inks. So remember to visit the Ink exchanging npcs prior to MoP. These vendors can be changed in pre-expansion patches as well, so start thinking ahead.

Catering To New Characters

There are many markets that will see a spike in demand because of all the new characters entering the game. Selling to new characters in Cataclysm, made me a massive chunk of gold. Planning and thinking ahead to what these new characters will be wanting to buy is an important step in the process of making gold off low level and new characters that should be started soon. If you plan on making certain gear that new players will want, you might want to be stockpiling the harder to find materials in your MoP stockpile. Leather gear will be at a premium because of the increased demand that monks will bring to the economy. I would highly recommend starting your leather stockpiling now. Barbaric Bracers, Deviate Scale Belts, Toughened Leather Gloves, and other low level Leatherworking niches should be vibrant again. Many of these take some harder to find materials that should be stockpiled now, if you are planning on hitting those markets. Good low level green items that have the proper stat combinations will also be good items to flip to the leveling monks and other leather wearing classes.

Bags are always a huge seller when expansions bring a character population explosion. Remember to sell the profession specific bags as well. The bags required by the various professions have always been great investments,especially the mining bags.

The population explosion is also another great time to start or resume MFC Barking. Barking is always more effective the more players are hearing your barks, so expansion launches are great times to bark. You don't have to limit barking to just Mysterious Fortune Cards. Adventurer's Journals are another great item to sell to leveling characters.

Hedging Against MoP Inflation

Inflation is coming in MoP. The item most succeptable to inflation is liquid gold. That's why building a stockpile for MoP is so important. By choosing items to buy as inflation hedges we buy specific items now that we will hopefully be able to sell for much more into the next expansion. Historically, good choices have been hard to obtain items like rare and hard-to-get companion pets, mounts, and expensive vanity items. With MoP bringing us the battle pet system, I still think pets are a no brainer here. Stocking up on the rare pets should bring a nice payout in Mists of Pandaria. I would also keep an eye out for nicely priced rare mounts like Poseidus. Less players will be in his zone and his price should inflate and be a nice hedge against inflation.

Now that we have more news on the Battle Pet System, don't miss my new posts on:

19 comments:

I have been stockpiling hypnotic dust. On a good day I can buy it for under 20s/dust (4g/stack). If it inflates anything like infinite dust from Wrath, it will eventually sell for 8+g per dust (160g/stack).

The only certain market after the expansion will be for new bags for all the new pandas being rolled. Stock up on Frostweave or embersilk bolts of cloth, Hypnotic dust and infinite dust. Beyond that the only thing you should be stocking up on is gold. Clear out your guild vaults of everything now and maximize gold sales now. You will need the space for new mats to satisfy new markets you are not aware of yet. You will need the gold to be able to corner the market on items you wish to produce and sell. Anything else is speculative and a waste of space. Let's all remember the words "pyrite ore".

If you need all that extra space to stockpile at the beginning of a expac your just doing it wrong. You should be crafting and selling while its hot and prices are high. Why would you stockpile something? To wait for more players to level up their professions so you can have triple the undercutting. Sell fast before prices fall as more people level up professions or level up and dont need the item you are stockpiling. You need a good amount of gold to boost your professions early but if you stockpile all your gold your going to pay more for items that were previously in low demand but are high because of all the new low levels. Your strategy is bad and you should feel bad!!!

you should feel bad for not knowing that there is always a period of big inflation after expansions came out. And the only way to fight inflation is to actually invest in goods that will increase in value.

Liquid Gold is the absolute WORST thing to stockpile because it is the most succeptable to Inflation. Granted, you don't want to invest all of your liquid gold into items, because you will need gold in addition to commodities.

Investing in commodities at today's prices is a smart move because there are plenty of items that you will continue to craft in MoP that are craftable today. You also can't hedge against inflation with liquid gold.

Think about it. What could 1000 gold buy you in Vanilla? How about now? 1000 Gold ain't shit, but it was a ton back then. Investing in items that will save you money (crafting materials) or will gain value over time is what stockpiling is all about.

If you had to put a number on it, what would you say is an ideal amount of liquid gold to have the day MOP drops on an very high population server? Right now I have about 60k after spending 140k stockpiling.

I have 2 alts to consider. A JC/Engineer and a Tailor/Enchanter. I have experienced making gold using JC during new patches, but never during a new expansion. Is it possible to say whether or not I should level my professions in the beginning of MOP or wait until mat prices drop to reasonable levels after a month or two?

As I've written about before, I don't believe that power leveling is worth it, especially at the beginning of an expansion. Odds are you are just going to blow a ton of gold to hold a market solo for what a day? a few hours? maybe a few days if lucky, but these days it just isn't worth it because you won't have the market to yourself very long.

Surprisingly, elementium ore has actually dropped in price on my server ever since MOP dropped, which was a few weeks ago now. I assumed that this wouldn't be the case on Kel'Thuzad US alliance, and that like saronite when cata hit, elementium would also go up in value. Any advice on what I should do? Wait it out until the prices creep up, prospect, craft and DE, sell as much as I can at a loss? Any and all thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

The price should rebound. It's still early into MoP and the stock of ore may not have dried up yet, especially if you still have bots farming the older ore while they learn the new routes in the pandaren zones.

Ore from older expansions always inflates over time. I'm selling saronite ore that I had saved from end of Wrath stockpiling that I paid under 12.5g per stack and am now moving it for 69-99g per stack.

Stockpiling is a long term investment. Just sit and wait and definately don't start unloading it for a loss!

What about expensive mats such as maelstrom crystals? I have loads of these at the moment and I'm worried they will become worthless once the new MoP mats arrive. However, I'm wondering if their demand might increase due to all the new Pandas choosing the enchantment profession. Its a bit of a double edged sword.

I suspect orbs are a great investment - at the right price for 2 reasons.

1. cheap skill points at the start of the expansion (who wants to burn new stuff when you can use old - esp those going for a realm first!)

2. Illusionary bags will (bar the possible royal satchel from the black market) be the largest generic bag you can get, ad the weekly volatile based Dreamcloth CD does not seem to be being removed. With AOE looting you will be able to sell these at a profit and using every orb you can and have acquired. A few minutes barking in trade and players will be flocking to upgrade to illusionary/embersilk over frost/netherweave bags - more loot less stops for those instance farming.

True the gear will be useless other than a few much loved transmog items and those seeking new upgrades for returning 80's (a tiny market) but bags glorious bags - there's nothing quite like them.

I agree that having a few extra chaos orbs to use for cheap skill-ups is a good idea, but thats all I would stock up on them for.

MoP is bringing Tailoring the Royal Satchel, which is a generic 28 slot bag (2 larger than the Illusionary Bag), which is made from 12 Imperial Silk and requires a Tailoring skill of 600 to learn the recipe.

In my experience, Most players tend to start out with the Netherweave Bags and then if they upgrade it tends to be an all-or-nothing upgrade to the max if they upgrade at all.